Apple car could add a cool $50 billion onto Apple’s revenues

Apple could be sitting on a goldmine with its own Apple-branded car. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

As rumors of an Apple car start to gain speed, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has run the figures to find out what kind of business proposition automobiles could be for a company that tends to steer clear of small or low-margin markets.

His verdict? If Apple cars were even a “moderate success,” Tim Cook and pals could be looking at an extra $50 billion per year in revenues. To put that figure in context, it would be an increase of 23 percent on top of the already impressive cash-generating machine that was Apple in 2015.

A shot of Apple’s mysterious minivan, as sent in by Cult of Mac reader Nathan Feller.

Munster’s figure is based on an estimate that the U.S. car market is worth $500 billion in sales each year, and an assumption that Apple could conceivably grab 10 percent of that.

Quite correctly, he also notes that even though the Apple Watch isn’t out yet, Wall Street types are going to be looking to the next great Apple innovation to continue moving the needle. “We believe the potential for a car gives investors something, along with the Watch and TV, to look at as the next big thing for Apple,” Munster writes. “We believe this hope should be positive for the multiple on shares of AAPL and help support the stock over the next six months.”

For now, the Apple car is still very much a rumor — although there’s more and more to suggest it could be more than that. Apple design guru Jony Ive talked about cars in his New Yorker profile, much as Tim Cook hinted that Cupertino was interested in wearables before the Apple Watch was announced. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, claims Cook approved a secret car project more than a year ago, and that Apple is now building a 1,000-person team to take on Tesla Motors.

In the meantime, here are the qualities we’d love to see if Apple does, in fact, create its own car. Will we be proven correct? Watch this space.